@orrery @starkatt Well, yeah, math is exactly what I was thinking of with the earlier question. We give it form with our systemizations, but that doesn't mean we made it up.

@indi @starkatt But... does it?

It really comes down to "what math is." If I've already shared the IdeaChannel "Math May Not Exist" video, I won't do it again, but there's currently an argument in the philosophy departments of some universities as to whether math is a property of the universe or an "unusually effective symbolic language for describing physics." There is an argument to be made we have, at least at some level, "made math up."

@orrery @starkatt That's part of what I was talking about though. You're overreading my point maybe? :)

"Doesn't mean we made it up" != "Proof we didn't make it up"

@indi @starkatt Oh! No, nonono. An absence of evidence is no substitute for evidence of an absence. I'm only saying there is room for both interpretations and that they're both potentially valid.

I may be tangling myself in sophist's knots. It wouldn't be the first time I've done that. xvx

@orrery Yes that's what I was trying to say too. :)

@indi Okay, right, I did misread your statement. Vehement agreement! Apologies!

@starkatt This whole thing less me down an awesome train of thought that ended up with me pondering the epic colonialism of the Craftworker mindset. I can derive arithmetic from first principles too, that doesn't mean it's invalid.

@indi @starkatt

I was trying and failing to source a specific quote from Craft Sequence about creation myths, and how they can be retroactively true, earlier in this thread. Something like "as soon as we discovered gods, they had always existed." But maybe that was from Gunnerkrigg Court.

Closest I found was from Fulm Fathom Five (paraphrased): "I suspect that if we could go back in time to the beginning, we'd find all of [the creation myths] happening simultaneously."